Do we want Christ or just Christmas?

In “the Great Divorce” C.S. Lewis tells of the ghost of an artist that has arrived in the valley of the shadow of life.  The artist’s ghost is struck by the beauty of the scene and has a great desire to paint what he sees.  In the following conversation the ghost and a person talk about how the artist lost his love for the ‘light’ and replaced it for the love of painting.  The person tells the ghost, “If you are interested in the country only for the sake of painting it you will never learn to see the country.”  Later the person tells the ghost that every poet, musician and artist is, “drawn away from the love of the thing he tells to love of the telling.  Till down in deep hell they cannot be interested in God at all, but in only what they say about Him.”

That is the danger that we face in the grandeur of Christmas. 

Christmas is the one time of year that a secular society seems most interested in the telling of the story of Christ.  Try as it might the symbols, stories, traditions, and rituals of Christmas point to the incarnation.  Everything points to the miracle of God eternal becoming fully human, being wrapped in cloth and placed in a feeding stall.  Efforts to debunk Christmas as myth always turn back to the fact that something happened that was beyond the realm of natural.  To attempt to replace Merry Christmas with Happy Holiday begs the question, “What are these Holy Days for which you wish me happiness?  Who and what make them holy?  What does it mean that these days are themselves holy? What does holy mean?”  Everything about Christmas points toward the manger.

As Christians we have to deal with the danger of loving the opportunity Christmas represents to the exclusion of the one we celebrate.   I consider myself a Christmas purest which can be a mistake for a Grinch.  I dislike the shallowness, commercialism, market exploitation and secularization of Christmas.  When in local ministry I worked very hard at leading the church to avail itself of the worship, evangelistic and discipleship occasion that was Christmas.  Beginning in September I began writing scripts, researching, and planning our Christmas Gala.  It became one of the things I loved most about our church year.  In retrospect, did I love the telling more than the hero of the story?  I wonder if creating the perfect event didn’t take precedent over the focus?  I look back with great fondness to the moments, but are they moments of worship or sentimental remembrance?

I hope your anticipation of the Christ and your celebration are wonderful and grand occasions.  But I also hope they pale in comparison to your encounter with the Christ.

It is only a matter of time!

When I was a kid waiting for Christmas was difficult.  I don’t know if it is our culture or my personality, something else or a combination of factors, but waiting was and is not a strong suit for me.  The waiting really began Monday after Thanksgiving weekend when I had to go back to school.  That morning on the way to school marked the beginning of the count down.  Let me confess, I like to learn I just hated school.  While waiting for Christmas the days in school really were a bore, but sooner or later Christmas would come and set me free from school.  I hated doing long division.  If a train left Chicago at 11:00 and another train left L.A. at 7:00 all that mattered was that they got to where they were going by Christmas.  I didn’t want spelling bees; they never asked me to spell “HAM”.  I didn’t want a history lesson about two guys walking from St. Louis to the Pacific Ocean.   I wanted Christmas.  The clocks at school during Christmas moved exceptionally slow. I was A.D.D. before A.D.D. was discovered.  I always felt we should have had a class dedicated to day dreaming-I was good at that.  I practiced a lot especially while waiting for Christmas.   I was never a good student and during December I was especially distracted and distract-able by something better that was just ahead.

Everyone came home at Christmas. Being the youngest in my family I was excited to see my brothers come home from college, one uncle home from the Navy, and another to park his 18 wheeler for a week.  While never destitute we were not a wealthy family and so meals were rarely sumptuous.  But Christmas was a season of feasting.  There seemed to be a near endless supply of fruit, candies, and big meals during the days around Christmas.  I remember my uncle bringing candy by the bags at Christmas, candy that came from the PX which some how made it special.

It was also when we would present the Christmas program at church.   Some time just after Halloween we would begin the preparation.  Some years it was a musical, others it was a drama, occasionally it was a live manger scene in front of the church.  Having a donkey or goat at church made the Christmas story real.  Compared with modern Christmas productions ours were very primitive and humble affairs, but we loved the moment and the fellowship with cake and hot chocolate afterwards. 

I can remember specific decorations I made almost 50 years ago out of computer punch cards, glitter, glue, and silver or gold paint.   I can remember caroling and taking cookies to the old folks home. I enjoyed getting presents, but I really liked making a list to whom I would give what.  I remember trying to decide what kind of stationary to buy my uncle (it had to be serious incase he needed to write the Pentagon).   Other than never having a white Christmas, I loved the whole Christmas holiday. 

All of which made the waiting harder and the preparation more fun.  These apparent opposites were true because it was just a matter of time till Christmas would be here.  The month from thanksgiving to Christmas always passed; it never failed.  That is one of the lessons of Advent.  By preparing to celebrate the first coming of Christ we are training for the second coming.  It is just a matter of time. 

Between now and the second coming things can be really bad.  We will face the slow decay of years and age.  We will go to funerals for loved ones. We will get sick and from one of those sicknesses we will one day be the guest of honor at a funeral.  The mind and the body will grow feeble.  We will watch a world around us crumble and fail.  We will even see nature groaning and complaining under the stress and distress of decay.  The picture is as gloomy as the outlook of an emo kid without a prom date.  But it is okay this is just school between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

The second coming is like Christmas only more.  It is Super, Grand, Awesome Christmas; it is feasting of which Christmas dinner is a vague picture.  It is the reunion that is all joy and never followed by separation.  It is enjoying gifts prepared for us at the greatest cost and giving the gifts of love and worship.  The decoration and celebration of this annual special day is newspaper chains compared to the blazing grandeur of the coming. 

So, as you prepare for Christmas this year, do so with gusto and flair and wow.  But remember the true work of preparing for Christmas is to train and prepare for The Coming.  Super Christmas is just around the corner; I can hardly wait.  

Is it easier to be thankful in hard times?

This week we will set aside a day to be thankful.  We do this in the context of unbelievable prosperity and wealth.  As part of our ritual of Thanksgiving we will participate in a feast that at times borders on gluttony. Many will, as part of the ritual, watch football games, parades and go shopping.  Black Friday begins for some retailers on Thanksgiving afternoon and part of our Thanksgiving ritual will be to spend, in some cases, to excess.

In the midst of all this opulence it is sometimes easy to be forgetful.  If the opposite of Thanksgiving is ingratitude, the soil from which ingratitude grows is forgetfulness.   When we have all we need and then some, it is hard to remember what it is like to not have enough.  Many, if not most of us, have never, ever known what it is like to literally not have enough.  We may have not eaten what we wanted, but we have eaten.  We may not have had new shoes or attractive shoes, but we have only gone barefoot by choice.  We sleep out as a camping trip not because that is our only option.  We have a hard time not being forgetful because we have no real lack to remember.

I don’t believe it is easier to be thankful in hard times.  The thankful heart will look at a full plate and say, “Thank you”; it will look at a sparse plate and with equal vitality say, “Thank you.”  A person who isn’t grateful for a little will likely not be grateful for much.  A person who is truly mindful of blessings with much will likely be thankful for the small blessings when those were all they had.   

Which brings me to the curious passage of scripture that started these musings.  The man of God had lost his freedom, his space was cramped, stank and it was darker than the blackest night.  But words of thanks swelled from him lips.  I’m not talking about Paul in prison.  I am talking about the troubled prophet Jonah:

  

But I will sacrifice to You
with the voice of thanksgiving


That which I have vowed I will pay. 
Salvation is from the Lord.” 2:9

This was before he rode the vomitus express.  This was his moving song of worship from the belly of the fish.  There doesn’t appear to be any promise of rescue.  He could have anticipated the other exit at the moment. 

In view of his deplorable attitude while on his mission and in the aftermath of Nineveh’s repentance, I find it interesting that in the worst moment, in the worst place, in the hardest time, the prophet’s heart was most grateful.  It may not be easier to be thankful during hard times, but they can be a prompt for remembering and it is memory that is the seedbed of gratitude. 

Happy Thanksgiving and remember to remember

Whose Stuff is this anyway?

When my daughter was about 9 or 10 years old she went through a nearly bi-polar phase.  On the one hand she loved to dress nice.  Sunday was her favorite day of the week because going to church gave her the occasion to dress in her finest and spend ridiculous amounts of time primping as she dressed to go out.  Everything had to be perfect, from the shoes to every hair on her head.  However, on the other hand her room was a complete and utter shambles.  It seemed that every article of clothing was constantly on the floor. Lonely coat hangers rested on the floor of the closet or hung in isolation.  The bed was never made while toys and books were left where they were when her fancy changed.  Schoolwork was scattered to the four corners of her world.

While far from a neat freak I do have some standards and I wanted to teach basic care for your belongings to my daughter.  I tried every motivation I could think of or find from Dr. Dobson.  I placed a bowl of coins on the dresser and told her that every time I came in the room and found it a mess I would take a coin.  At the end of the week, she could keep all the coins in the bowl.  First trip in I took a quarter.  The second trip in the bowl was turned over and half buried in a pile of clothes.  This child was beyond motivation!

One Sunday afternoon I went into her room and her favorite and most beautiful dress was lying on the floor among all the mess.  I walked over and stood on it and began to wipe my feet on the dress.  When she saw what I was doing she exploded, “Dad, what are you doing?  That is my dress!”

“If you treat it like a rag, I will too!”

“Stop, you’ll ruin it.”

“I have never stepped on your dress while it was hanging up.  If you put things away I couldn’t walk on it.”

“IT IS MY STUFF, why can’t I do what I want?”

“Because none of this is yours.  It is all mine, the bed, the clothes, the books.  It is all mine I just let you use my stuff and live in my house.  I want you to take better care of the stuff I loan you!”

I, being the mature one, got the last word, so I left the room.  Neither of us was especially encouraged or motivated.   Later on I had this uneasy feeling-call it conviction if you will.  It was as if Someone were saying to me,  “None of this stuff is yours, not the house, not the clothes, and not that little girl.”

We are pretty good about identifying when something we feel is ours is not being used or cared for properly.  But we sometimes miss that we are stewards and not owners.  As someone once said, “Take care of your Dad’s stuff.”  When we realize that we are never the owners, it is a great relief.  It also helps us think differently about the things to which we have been given a stewardship.

  

The Biggest Thing to happen this week will not be the election

Of course you know about the War of the Fifth Coalition.  Its importance can hardly be over estimated.  A tyrant was on the march again and the alliance of five powers was all that opposed him.  The campaigns of this war would range for over 600 miles.  Nearly 200,000 casualties would be lost in this war.   As you can well imagine it was the most important subject of any and every occasion.  With the aid of Google, can you tell me any of the details of this war?

This week we will, mercifully, come to the end of this Presidential election cycle.  Both sides have told us that if their opposition is elected it will mean the end of our nation, perhaps western civilization, perhaps even the world.  I have heard that this is the biggest election ever and nothing could be more important than what happens Tuesday.  Some feel that this may be the most important event in 100 years.  Really?

Sounds like the war news that fluttered about the War of the Fifth Coalition. 

·      Have you heard of Charles Darwin who reshaped the very way we think about life?

·      We might note the influence of Robert Winthrop who said: "Men, in a word, must necessarily be controlled either by a power within them or by a power without them; either by the Word of God or by the strong arm of man; either by the Bible or by the bayonet."

·      Perhaps you have ever felt the raised bumps of a language developed by Louis Braille.

·      Maybe you were intrigued by the dark poems and stories of Edger Allen Poe.

·      I am sure that you have a richer diet and a fuller panty because of the work of Cyrus McCormick who, by inventing the mechanical reaper, helped propagate unfathomable abundance.

·      Speaking of Presidents, was your life shaped by one name, Abraham Lincoln?

What do these profound influencers have to do with the War of the Fifth Coalition?  Only time.  While the world was wringing it hands about a series of battles and believing it was the end of civilization, these men were being born.  The great events of 1809 were not battles in Austria, but births in private.  Not a conflict of nations, but the first breathes of infants.  Like them or not, all of these people have had a more profound influence on you than the campaigns of distant armies.

In Luke 3:1-2 we read: Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip was tetrarch of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias was tetrarch of Abilene, in the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John, the son of Zacharias, in the wilderness.  In this passage we read about seven powerful people from the emperor to the high priest.  But what really mattered was that God’s word came to a guy living in a desert.

I am not saying don’t vote, nor who to vote for, but rather, remember the big events are rarely what we expect.  The biggest event of this century, decade, year, or week most likely will not happen Tuesday, but if it does, it may be at the local birthing center not the ballot box.

Oh, and the rampaging tyrant was the Little General Napoleon aided by Eugène Rose de Beauharnais, Józef Antoni Poniatowski, Maximilian Joseph, and Frederick Augustus Joseph Maria Anthony John Nepomuk Aloysius Xavier.  All house hold names I know.

What we can learn from “The Adulteress Wife.”

Albert Camus’ depressing short story, “The Adulteress Wife,” tells the story of a woman who is dissatisfied with life.  She finds her husband, with whom she is traveling on a business trip, to be a bore that is more interested in business than marriage.  He is generous and provides for her, but she finds no excitement about life and with him.  She considers herself attractive and is pleased with her body, and is perhaps a little excited by the attention she receives from a man in uniform, although she does not find him attractive.  Her domestic life, centered around her home above their shop, is her preferred place, but even that is portrayed in terms that sets one in mind of a prison, not a home.

The life in which this poor woman finds herself is symbolized in the dry, cold, gray, dusty world in which they travel.  In the evening, the couple retires to a cold room and Janine tries to find comfort with her husband, but her sleeping husband provides no spark of warmth.  Cold, inside and out, Janine gets up in the night and goes to the city walls she had explored earlier that evening with her husband.  There in the desert night the beauty of the star-crowded sky provides for her some sense of a spark of life.  But as she stands there, even that fades.  Returning to her room, her crying awakes her husband.  He asks, “What is the matter?”  She replies, “Nothing.  Nothing is the matter, Darling.”

We might be tempted to imagine that this is about the lack of communication between a husband and a wife.  But it is much deeper than that. 

The ancient Greek world was haunted by the concept of “phtheirō”.  It means corruption, as translated in 2 Peter 1.4.  But it comes from the idea of “to pine” or “to waste away.”  With no hope in a life after death, only the gray, shadowy places of Hades, the Greek thinkers lived under the cloud of “phtheiro.”  It was the senselessness and transitory nature of life that bothered them.  The problem was nothing or the nothingness that life offers; if this life is all there is. 

In Jesus, we escape the pining away, the wasting away, and the corruption of life.  In Him, we have an out from the nothingness, which haunts a godless world.  We desperately attempt to avoid the nothingness of life.  We try to find something that will give us meaning in the midst of the meaninglessness.  We assign great importance to things that are truly nothing.   We elevate pleasant pastimes to priorities.  We act as if the events captured by paparazzi make a difference.  We add 100 cable channels to our TV, so that every passing fancy can be explored.  We fill every moment with some sort of stimulus or depressant in a desperate effort to hide from ourselves that all is nothing.  All life is pointless, then we die; unless, we know Jesus. 

“Everything that goes into a life of pleasing God has been miraculously given to us by getting to know, personally and intimately, the One who invited us to God. The best invitation we ever received!  We were also given absolutely terrific promises to pass on to you—your tickets to participation in the life of God after you turned your back on a world corrupted by lust.”  2 Peter 1:3-4 The Message

Janine was right; nothingness is the problem.  If you listen, you can hear the heart cry of, “Nothing!” in our world.  It is a heart cry for Jesus, the only solution to nothingness.

  

Conversation with a Millennial

I talk with a lot of church leaders about their church’s ministry; as a church consultant that is what I do.  One of the ever-present questions and challenges that I hear is, “How can we get young people into our church?”  Yesterday, I attended a 60^th birthday party of a friend whose mother is on her church’s board and when she learned I am a church consultant she asked this question again.  

More than a few books have been written about how to engage Millennials in the life of the church.  A Google search of “Millennials in the church” produces thousands of hits on the coming demise of the church because of the mass exodus of young adults from congregations of all denominations and theological perspectives.  I realize that to write about the Millennials and the church is to go over what has been gone over.  I am certain that I can offer no new insight, tool, or resource that can stem the tide of their mass exodus.  However, I can relate a conversation I had with a Millennial and offer from that a couple of suggestions.

This conversation was with a Millennial who is a deeply committed disciple of our Lord, but who is frustrated beyond decent language with what he experiences when attending a local church.  As a single young adult, he still attends worship, but is almost to the point of dropping out because he finds worship so frustrating.  I expected to hear complaints about bad music or dull sermons.  He didn’t mention anything we typically hear in church growth conversations.

To sum up his complaint would be difficult, (this was a long conversation), but we might get close if we described his portrayal of the church as “Passionless”.  Here are a few snippets of what he said:

·      “If you don’t want to be here don’t come!”

·      “All they really want to do is run stupid, out-of-date, programs.”

·      “The Muslim’s are trying to conquer the world; all we want to do is keep the building.”

·      “It is about people at the center keeping power, people near the center trying to get power, and people on the outside not caring who has power.”

While the comments of one Millennial are only antidotal evidence, there is something to be learned here and it is not from what he said.

Let’s begin with this proposition: “Don’t ask, listen!”

Millennials are among the most spoiled generation ever.  Almost from infancy they have been asked over and over, “What do you want?” and their parents have then done back flips trying to give them what ever they want.  Now churches are doing the same thing.  In formal focus groups or more informal ways we ask, “What would you like the church to do so you will attend and bring your kids?”   We need to stop asking, “How can we spoil you so you will like us?” We need to listen to their heart cry.  In all likelihood, they will not be asking for a program, a nursery upgrade, or a Shamisen in the praise band.  (A Shamisen is a three stringed instrument from Japan that looks vaguely like a banjo).  What you will likely hear is a heart cry wanting to make a difference on the issues of the heart.  It may be the conditions of the community, Black Lives Matter, a perceived Islamic invasion of the west, but it will be about issues that are going on in their world they are inheriting from us. Issues they want to see changed.

Second proposition: “Don’t ask them to be like you/us.”

One church leader came to me and asked, “Why can’t I get the young adults to attend …?”  They went on to describe the ‘program’ that they were running.  To be honest it sounded a lot like programs that my parents ran to attract young families when I was a kid.  In my dad’s ministry back in the 60’s and 70’s, he worked hard at reaching young couples and families, and had considerable success.  As I listened to the description of what was being done, I had a flash back to being a 10 year old attending an event that was part of my dad’s ministry.  This is not a call to a new kind of program.  It is a warning.  We must not expect Millennials to become like us.  I am afraid that in many cases we don’t want Millennials; we want Babyboomer 2.0

Third proposition: “Don’t ask if you don’t want to hear.”

 I have found Millennials, at least in person and individually, to be polite and pleasant.  In groups and online there seems to be a different dynamic at work.  But if you talk with Millennials about church, and they love you too much to protect you from the truth, you most likely will not like what they have to say.  If you don’t want to be offended, then don’t ask for their input.  As I listened to the Millennial talk, I realized that 6 years ago I would have been angry, dismissive, and defensive.  I would have argued that he was being disrespectful to the bride of Christ and should practice Christian submission.  But now I realize, it is only when a critique contains truth that we tend to get our feelings hurt.  Not every thing a millennial says is golden, like all of us, they, collectively and individually, have bonehead ideas.  But if you get close enough to have one tell you what they feel, don’t be hurt if they cut you to the quick as they tell you an ugly truth about your dead or dying church. 

This is not meant to be one more hand-wringing article about the demise of the church in America because Millennials are leaving.  The Church will be fine, and I expect that Millennials will return to the Lord in droves; it just will not be the church we are trying to preserve.